Industrial control systems monitor the numerous components of industrial plants and large operations, such as oilfields, rigs, refineries, wellsites, mines, waterworks, wastewater plants, wind farms, telecommunications, transportation infrastructure, and the power grid. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), for example, is a type of industrial control system that relies on far-flung remote units attached to distributed components to communicate with a central server. Such remote telemetry may communicate with the central server over limited bandwidth through multiple links and a central transceiver. The bandwidth for reporting data may be limited by legacy communications protocols, by remoteness (such as isolated devices in a deep well), or by pay-per-volume transmission channels (e.g., by satellite). Often, each remote unit transmits ongoing status information over the limited bandwidth, and may also receive elementary commands from the central server. When a critical event occurs at a remote component, however, such as a fault or failure state, the remote telemetry is limited to providing only sparse data about the critical event suitable for the limited bandwidth available.